2008 WSOP Event 24 $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em/Omaha Day 1: McKinney Leads, Cash Bubble Looms

A first day's action in Event #24 at the 2008 WSOP, $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em/Omaha Mixed, saw a starting field of 457 trimmed down to 85 through the first session's opening eight levels of play, leaving the survivors in sight of the money bubble to be reached early in today's session as they play down to a final table.

Leading the pack overnight was Stephen McKinney, who finished the day at 92,500 chips, topping a relatively unknown overnight top ten, with the most prominent name among the early leaders being Max "The Italian Pirate" Pescatori in ninth. The first day's top ten:

Stephen McKinney 92,500
Henning Granstad 68,500
Kyle Kloeckner 65,000
Jesse McEuen 63,400
David Penly 63,300
Michael Pesek 62,100
Shawn Buchanan 60,900
Mark Davis 57,600
Max Pescatori 56,000
Dustin Sitar 55,600

Erik Seidel and Jordan Morgan were both just outside the top ten, while other big names still in the mix include Minh Ly, Howard Lederer, Ted Forrest, Joe Hachem, Burt Boutin, James McManus, Sorel Mizzi, Rolf Slotboom, Johnny Chan, Allen Cunningham and others. They're the survivors of an initial pack that saw plenty of other stars on hand, even if many of those stars departed fairly early in the proceedings. The first couple of levels brought quick ends to the events of David Williams, Woody Deck, Victor Ramdin, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, and Josh Arieh, among others.

Sammy Farha's day came to a quick exit courtesy of David Benyamine, when Benyamine took down a big three-way pot early, in an Omaha hand. Benyamine raised preflop to 1,000, and was in turn reraised by the big blind to 3,500, with both Farha and Benyamine make the call to see the flop, which came . The small-blind player moved all in for 2,300, Farha moved all-in for his last 2,375, a hair more, and Benyamine called. Benyamine showed , which came up the winner over Farha's and the other player's when the turn filled Benyamine's straight and the river blanked for everyone.

PokerNews' own Tony G, fresh off a final table in the deuce-to-seven lowball with rebuys event, exited early on the day as well. Tony lost a classic coin flip for the last of his chips in a hold'em hand, his reeled in by another player's when the board brought . David Chiu and Phil Ivey were among other pros who made similar exits at about the same time.

Join us today at 3pm PDT when action resumes in this unique mixed-format event. PokerNews will have the latest news from the floor, available as always in the "live Reporting" section of the site.

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